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E-book Martin Waldseemüller’s 'Carta marina' of 1516 : Study and Transcription of the Long Legends

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Penilaian

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This book is devoted to an imposing world map, printed on twelve sheets and rich in detail, that was designed by the Germancartographer Martin Waldseemüller in 1516, whose only surviving exemplar is in the Jay I. Kislak Collection at the Libraryof Congress. This map, theCarta marina, has tended to live in the shadow of Waldseemüller’s earlier world map, thatprinted in 1507, which is famous for being thefirst to apply the name“America”to the New World. TheCarta marinalackssome of the striking audacity of the 1507 map, on which the cartographer not only debuts a new name for the newlydiscovered lands in the west, but also represents all 360 degrees of longitude at a time when the interior and the westernreaches of the New World were unknown, and the vastness of the Pacific was still undiscovered by Europeans. On theCartamarina, by contrast, he more prudently omits as unknown everything between the eastern coast of the New World and theeastern coast of mainland Asia. Yet theCarta marinais the fruit of a cartographic boldness that is equally impressive: awillingness to discard almost all of the research done for the earlier map, and undertake the laborious creation of an entirelynew detailed and monumental image of the world based on a new philosophy and a new projection, and using new sources.The map is a remarkable testament both to the cartographer’s determination to show the true form of the world and to thedynamism of early sixteenth-century cartography.One of the many differences between the 1507 and 1516 maps is that there is a larger number of long legends on thelatter. In the long text block in the lower left corner of the map (see Legend9.3), Waldseemüller lists many of the sourcesthat he used in creating the map, which are also the sources of many of the long legends. He clearly viewed the textualelement of his map as very important, and yet in the more than one hundred years since the rediscovery of theCarta marina,few of the legends have been transcribed and translated, they have never been studied together, and their correlations withthe sources that Waldseemüller lists on the map have not been explored.1Thus an essential aspect of this important map, andof Waldseemüller’s effort to convey information to the map’s viewers, has remained uninvestigated.We know little about Waldseemüller, and the general lack of scholarly attention devoted to theCarta marinarepresentsnot only a failure to address one of the masterpieces of the most important cartographer of the early sixteenth century, butalso a lost opportunity to study the development of his cartographic thought, and thus add to our knowledge of the man. Byexamining how he used his sources, we can gain insight into Waldseemüller’s methods and character, and by seeing how hiscartographic thought evolved, we can come to appreciate his intellectual openness andflexibility.In this introduction I offer a detailed discussion of theCarta marina, focusing on a comparison of that map with the 1507,and also with the maps in Waldseemüller’s edition of Ptolemy’sGeographypublished in 1513, in the interest of revealing allthat the later map can tell us about the development of Waldseemüller’s thought. Following this general discussion of themap comes a transcription, translation, and study of all of the long legends on theCarta marina, with particular attentiondevoted to the determination of their sources. My hope is that the book will be of use not only to readers with a direct interestin Waldseemüller, but also more broadly to any scholar working on early sixteenth-century cartography, and to anyoneinterested in seeing how an experienced cartographer of that period went about constructing a new image of the world.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

940 VAN m

Penerbit

Switzerland : Springer Nature., 2020

Deskripsi Fisik

155 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9783030227036

Klasifikasi

940

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

-

Subjek

HIstory of Europe

Info Detail Spesifik

-

Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

-

Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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